GB round 1 attack of Borneo?

You’re right that this rule is ambigious in this rule book. But to me the intention of the game makers is very clear. That shows not from this rule book, but from all rule books after this version. For example in the rule book from 1943 2nd, They state specifically that all strategic bombing raids take place first. This resolves any argument about who pays the IPC’s to the bank, the attacker or the defender! Since they solved this in the next rule book, i think it is quite obvious what they intended and tried to correct.

@Renove:

Lately - when playing Japan - I’ve been experiencing huge problems when confronted with the UK1 fighter assault on the solomon sub and the following landing on the SZ 52 AC.

Well u better get used to these “huge problems” because that sorta stuff you mentioned is pretty standard.  Not THE standard, but standard enough that you should know how to respond right off the bat.  Sayin this is causing you HUGE PROBLEMS means you’re probably pretty inexperienced.

When it actually hits the sub - even when it doesn’t - the chances of an economic J1 sz 52 attack become very slim. My normal sz 52 assault consists of 1 AC 2 FIGS 1 Bom 1 Sub (if it survived UK1) 1 BS and 1 DST vs 1 AC 1 SUB 2 FIGS. With the SZ 37 AC - BS - FIG I attack the SZ 59 UK-DST (if alive), the other SZ 37 FIG supports the attack in China. The SZ 60 transport usually drops something off in Buryatia.

**FYI, the UK sub at Solomons usually attacks with the UK India fighter to try to kill the Jap sub at Solomons for a 2/3 overall shot of killing the Jap sub.

Another “standard” that I haven’t seen a lot (so is it really standard?  well it used to be) is UK transport block from Australia to New Guinea (or was that it, I forget).  The idea is that either you use a battleship to clear the transport, in which case any carriers you left at Solomons are more vulnerable to US attack, or you use a fighter at a time where you can hardly spare any fighters.

Blah blah, rest of ur stuff difficult to read.  I hate reading “SZ 52” blah blah reference.  Please write “Hawaii Island sea zone”.  I haven’t memorized the d*** map you know . . .

Anyways, you’re sending a battleship, bomber, destroyer, 2 fighter, destroyer.  That’s not “economical”.  That’s like saying “Hey US!  If you were planning on doing a KGF, here’s half my fleet giftwrapped!  Won’t you please smack my capital ships down by either strafing hard or if you’re lucky just smacking me dead on the spot?!”

Obviously you have some clue that this is the case due to comments in your post.  But I want to emphasize this is not the “economical” attack you may think it is.

You gotta figure first that you stand a good chance of losing a unit or two on the attack, then the Hawaii fighter, the W. US fighter, and the E. US bomber are in range, plus the US battleship and US transport. can hit.  If the US gets lucky they can clear Jap’s capital ships at Hawaii, if the US is moderately lucky, they can kill the destroyer and a couple of fighters then retreat back to W. US (where Japan can’t hit them after a US1 build plus US destroyer moving west from I think it’s around Panama).  Remember as Japan you didn’t take Hawaii, so you have to land fighters close by if your carrier gets blown up, and if you didn’t send your other AC to Solomons or close by, then when US attacks, you have to assign hits to your fighters before your carriers (if you don’t, US runs away and your fighters die for free).

THEN

For the rest, you totally ignored the UK air and Anglo-Egypt situation, which is what you have to consider on Japan’s first move.  Either there’s a UK bomber in range to hit your transports east of Japan or there isn’t.  If there is, leaving your transports unescorted is real risky, making your battleship-carrier attack on the UK destroyer at Kwangtung a bad idea.  Probably in most cases you should just ignore the UK dispersed fleet, leave the Jap battleship east of Japan to battleship bombard Burytia and escort transports there.  If the UK sticks around on UK2, you hunt, if UK flees, ignore - they make it to Germany, but in a KGF they get there too late to make a huge difference, and in a KJF, Germany should have enough air to mess with the Allied fleet anyways.**

Now I am aware that most players here will probably use the UK FIG to counter the G1 Anglo-Egypt but when the German bid is placed in Libya and the G1 ANglo-Egypt isn’t desastrous that counterattack becomes very hard, thus the FIG is often used for other strategies.

Yeah, like grabbing Borneo - I think it is.  Anyways, it’s a 4 IPC island.  Japan makes an early play for it, Japan pulls itself out of position in Asia.  Japan doesn’t make a play for it, UK’s up 4 IPCs for a while compensating for loss of Africa.

The SZ 52 stack (1AC 1SUB 2FIGS) has an above reasonable chance to really hurt the attacking Japanse fleet and there is always a chance for an American counterattack USA1 on the Japanese fleet - if things go horribly wrong for Japan. The dice don’t even have to be desastrous, a slight dice advantage for the Allies in SZ 52 can result in rather painful Japanese losses.

Yeah, that’s why you see Japan hitting Pearl with 1 sub (optional), 4 fighters 1 bomber in Pearl Light (nothing for Allies to counter), or if Allies reinforced Pearl like you describe, Pearl heavy with ALL units able to reach with rest of Jap fleet dispersing so UK can’t hunt it down.

I don’t like moves where you really need a good twist of fate - definitly so early in the game, so my question is, how do you handle the SZ 52 stack - especially when the Solomon SUB was killed UK1? Do you send the transport in SZ 60 as fodder or do you divert FIGS from the SZ 37 fleet? I could use some help in this matter.

What I would do as Japan totally depends on the board situation.  I’m not gonna be a dumbass and say BLA BLA BLA U SHOULD ALWAYS DO THE KUNNING BLA BLA PLAN, because obviously that’s fulla crap.

If the UK flew its bomber east, if the UK split its fleet, if the UK hit Borneo, if the UK retook Anglo-Egypt, if the UK flew its India fighter to Hawaii’s carrier, if the UK bought 3 fighters, if the UK bought an industrial complex in India, if Russia put 6 infantry in Burytia, if Russia put 1 infantry in Burytia, if Russia put 4 infantry in Sinkiang, if the UK Australia fleet split or stayed together east or west - all these are things you need to think about when you’re doing your move!  Saying you lost the Solomon sub is NOT sufficient information to offer an informed opinion on what you ought to do!

Usually I see the UK dispersing its Indian fleet.  Either UK retakes Anglo-Egypt and sends its Indian destroyer and carrier to hunt the Japanese transport at Kwangtung and attacks the Solomon sub with the UK sub and picks up 1 inf Aus and 1 inf New Zealand and sails east with the UK transport, in which case I leave Jap battleship east of Japan to protect transport plus 3 newly built transports (although I might switch this if UK bomber is in range of east of Japan - otherwise I don’t care if an usupported UK carrier and destroyer attack my Japanese fleet), and I hit Pearl with 1 sub (if it survived), 1 destroyer, 4-5 fighter, 1 bomber (saving 1 fighter for China), noncom battleship and two carriers to Solomons (leaving battleship, 2 carriers, 3+ fighters at Solomons, a hard target).

Or UK takes Borneo; I still build 3 transports 1 tank (retake Borneo next round), follow with standard as above.  Sometimes UK just sends 2 infantry to take Borneo and attacks the Solomon sub with UK sub and fighter, which can be inconvenient for the Japs given the extra fighter on Japan, in which case I might go Pearl heavy as described below.

If UK put a fighter on the US carrier, depending on the Asia situation, I might send EVERYTHING in range to Pearl.  (You NEED more than 2 fighters; if I remember right only 1 carrier can reach Pearl, and the US has a pretty good counterattack, so you need a loaded carrier on defense).  If you drop units, you can drop fighters, so your fleet is battleship, carrier, destroyer, 2 fighters (not bad), although you lose the fodder transport.  Drawback is, obviously, progress in Asia is slowed, which is why I really don’t like this option particularly if you see an infantry in Russian Burytia and an infantry in British India ready to take an underdefended Manchuria and French Indochina respectively.  You can typically respond by leaving 1 inf at Burytia and landing a fighter there (landing Jap fighter at French Indochina is better positionally, but usually due to UK transport in area threatening offload of troops plus UK bomber in range you lose the Jap fighter if you do this)

THERE!  If you wanted a simple answer, too bad!  Hahahahha.  Better give some more details if u want help.

Ironically, when I am playing the Axis I like an early exit for the Med fleet to!!

Into the Atlantic!!!  :evil:

To get the maximum defense in the London on Round 2

1. The Russians should have landed their fighters in Moscow on their first turn. They can both land in London on Russia 2. The sub on Russia 2 can go block a med navy by going to SZ12
2. The UK can build 5 inf 3 arm (30 IPCs), which provides maximum ground fodder under the restriction of mobilization and cash, and also land the tank from W. Canada to UK
3. The US can land 2 inf 1 art 1 arm in London through SZ8 on their first go, plus the fighter/bomber from E. US

There is absolutely nothing the Germans can do to stop this massive build-up, except possibly bombing the UK for 6 IPCs.

In the best case scenario for the Germans, they build 5 transports on G1, send their Med fleet westwards, bomb UK for 6 IPCs, and have all aircraft in range of London. But the Med fleet cannot attack London because of the Russian sub in SZ12, so the maximum force they can bring against London is 6 inf 6 tanks 6 fighter 1 bomber (5 built transports + 1 original in Baltic).

The defending force is a composite of the following: 2 inf 1 art 1 arm 2 fig 1 bomb 1 aa originally in London, + 8 inf from build assuming only 24 to spend from a perfect bombing, +1 tank from W. Canada, + 2 fighters from Russia, + 1 fighter 1 bomber 2 inf 1 art 1 arm from US, for a total of 12 inf 2 art 3 tank 5 fighter 2 bomber 1 aa.

In that perfect scenario for the Germans with a perfect bombing, they have right about 1% chance of winning.

Alternately a naval build by the UK like 1 car + 1 dest can deter a German landing, but the UK navy will be destroyed and you’d better hope some transports didn’t get through because the UK doesn’t have the bulk of its land forces ready.

The rule for holding VC’s is that at teh end of the US’s move (the complete turn of play) X number of VC’s are controlled by one side or the other.

8 VC’s is basically an Axis win (except in very special cases like a 2 turn limit test game where Russia goes suicidal in defense of the Allied VC’s)

Instead of 8, play for 9 for victory.

When one side or the other controls 9 VC’s at the end of a turn, then there is basically no doubt as to what side won.

if you want to see a crazy fleet battle that happened in one of my games?

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=6356.0

I’d advise that you give Karelia up in R1. If you build 3 Inf, 3 Arm and are a bit lucky with your rolls (attacking at least WRU, maybe UKR), it’s even possible to drive German forces out of Karelia in R2 (although not likely).

To add to ydavid’s comment, czech out the explanation that it gives, as far as “you could move a fighter from Hawaii to the East Indies in one turn, as long as you control both island groups.” Without Island Bases, your fighters couldn’t go anywhere near that far.

Basically it only helps the US in the Pacific.